"Homemade" Kosher When Traveling

During this year's trip to Phoenix, AZ, I didn't eat out in any of their kosher restaurants, but I ate a lot of food.  It wasn't that my sister had turned her house kosher or my parents had moved to a kosher facility either. 

I just had my own cooking equipment, knife, cutting board and covered pot in both locations.  I did a lot of basic food shopping, lots of vegetables.

I also had basic cooking equipment at my friend's apartment in Atlanta, GA, though there we ate one meal out per day to sample the kosher restaurants to be blogged about later, G-d willing.

For protein I bought canned fish, canned beans, almonds and at my friends, I ate "frozen cheese," aka Häagen-Dazs^® ice cream, including a whole pint of my favorite Mint Chip!

Maybe it's just me, but I don't function if I don't eat proper meals.  I am much more pleasant to be around when I've been eating good healthy food.  If you're based in a hotel/motel, make sure it has a microwave, which can be "kashered" and then "cooked in" when double/triple/quadrupling the wrapping.  Check with your LOR, local Orthodox Rabbi.  Many canned foods are kosher, too, and can be eaten directly from the can besides fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were kosher foods at the motel breakfast, and there was  a complementary airport shuttle I took for the price of a tip.

It's not that you shouldn't "treat yourself" when away from home, but in the end I think we all feel better if most of our food is healthy.  My sister and my friend really made every effort to make sure I had food to good eat, and considering that I've been a housewife and mother for over forty years, it was no great effort for me to cook a bit for myself.